


Walk or Crawl

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Stranded, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-10 03:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14728742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Peggy had told Jack to bring her husband home safe. And he was going to do that, no matter what it took.





	Walk or Crawl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustAnotherGhostwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/gifts).



_Bring him back,_ she'd said.

Just that.

 

***

 

It had been a joke between the three of them for years. Jack didn't even remember how it started, or when, though it was probably back when they were in the early days of getting SHIELD off the ground, when he and Daniel had ended up jetting around the country talking up the SHIELD project to a seemingly endless list of potential investors and wheel-greasers. Daniel had hated it, but he was actually good at it ... better than Jack, in some ways, with that fresh-faced working-class-kid sincerity, at least when he could be convinced not to let his sarcastic side run loose. And Peggy was off pursuing her own leads -- the project was hers, and they were support staff; Jack had known this even at the time, that trying to keep up with her would've only slowed her down. 

But somehow, in all of that, it had started, and kept up through the next few years -- when they said their goodbyes in some airport or other, Peggy would take Jack by the shoulders, very sincerely, look him in the eyes and declare, "Bring my husband back safe, Thompson."

"Yes, ma'am," he'd say, while Daniel rolled his eyes and pointed out that he was _right here_ , that Jack was the one who needed taking care of, that they were flying to Albany or some other out-of-the-way location where the risk of HYDRA assassins was slight, and so forth.

It was a routine, a game, a joke. But somewhere underneath it all was the understanding that their lives _weren't_ safe, the world wasn't safe; they'd all learned this at too young an age to ever forget it.

And here he was, here they were, and suddenly it wasn't a joke: here he was, grabbing the junior agent with him by the arm, both of them sooty and reeking of smoke. Jack gave the kid -- god, he _was_ a kid, 22 at the most -- a shove toward the small plane that was their only way off the mountain. "Don't wait for us. Get away, the whole place is gonna go up any minute. Get back to HQ, get on the line to Carter, and tell her ..." He hesitated, precious seconds lost in dithering about what he wanted his last words to Peggy to be. _Thank you_ , or _I'm sorry,_ ...

All the while aware that Daniel was back in that burning HYDRA base somewhere. Probably dead. But if there was a chance, even a chance at all that he wasn't --

"Sir?" the junior agent asked, wild-eyed.

"Tell her I'll bring him back to her."

 

***

 

That had been a week ago.

 

***

 

"You know what would be useful here, Sousa? A little help, for a change. Or failing that ..." Jack grunted as he dropped the end of the makeshift litter, straightened up painfully and flexed his hands to try to get some feeling back into them. "... conversation. Yeah, that'd be nice. I like the sound of my own voice and all, but a guy gets tired of laughing at his own jokes."

Silence; the wind rushed through the trees. Jack ran a dirty, blistered hand over his face, feeling the rough scruff of stubble that was starting to shade towards pretensions of an actual beard, and stared for a long, weary moment at Daniel, wrapped in an old canvas blanket and tied to the litter that Jack had put together (badly) out of branches and ends of rope. The rest of their supplies, what little they had, were lashed on with him.

It made for slow going, that was for sure. Especially in this rough, forested country, where he didn't dare take to the roads or seek help from the scattered herders' huts they passed. Too much risk; too much chance they'd be pegged as Americans, caught and turned in. 

Jack knelt to untie the canteen strapped beside Daniel. There was no reaction until he'd slapped Daniel's face a couple of times; finally Daniel tried to shove him off with a faint grunt.

"Drink," Jack said, and held the canteen to Daniel's lips. 

Daniel sipped it a little, then turned his head to the side and coughed. Jack didn't like the sound of that cough; it had a wet, ripping undertone to it. And he knew Daniel wasn't getting enough water. Neither of them were getting enough food.

And there wasn't a damn lot he could do about it. He sat back on his heels to take a swig from the brackish water in the canteen.

Daniel ended the racking coughing fit and took a shuddering breath. "... time is it?" he whispered.

"Late afternoon, I guess. We're almost to the border," he added.

"Liar."

"Worth a shot," Jack muttered. "Hell, we might be. Can't see a damn thing in all these trees."

"You should just go," Daniel said, in a rough, cracked voice. "Bring back help."

"Look, I hate to break it to you, but if I come back without you, I get to explain it to Carter, and I'm a lot more afraid of her than you. Plus," he added, "I'm not taking advice from the guy who managed to catch a bullet in the one good leg he's got."

Daniel huffed a dry laugh at that, and turned his head to the side, eyes drifting shut in his thin, dirty face.

Jack let out a long sigh and stood up. His back popped when he stretched it. He looked up at the sky, thought about picking up the end of the litter again -- and looked back down at Daniel, asleep or nearly. Dragging the thing was no picnic, but neither was riding on it. All they had for painkillers were a few aspirin, carefully marshaled to beat back the fever and try to give Daniel a few hours to sleep at night.

He could make camp here, while it was still light ... while he still had the energy. Maybe scout a little before dark if he could make himself.

By now he was getting pretty good at spotting campsites, and he found a good one in just a few minutes of exploring, a tumbledown stone wall overgrown with brush and overhanging trees. They might even make a small fire tonight; the place was hidden enough. Get warm, see if he could dry out his boots. He'd almost forgotten what it was like having dry socks. There was no source of water at the campsite, but they still had enough from the last spring that he could nurse their supply along and hope he came across something tomorrow that looked clean enough to drink.

As he dragged Daniel's litter into the hollow, he laughed softly to himself. He was almost getting good at this wilderness survival thing.

Darkness came on them fast, or maybe he was just slow in gathering firewood, dragged down with exhaustion and the shaky weakness that lack of food brought. No time for scouting tonight. Hell, they could be going in circles for all he knew; it'd been cloudy for the last two days.

But the fire took on the first try, meaning he didn't have to expend more than one of their precious and dwindling supply of matches. He dragged up some branches to make a sort of windbreak to throw back heat and make it less likely their fire would be spotted -- old survival trick he'd learned on Okinawa. It was almost cozy, then, with the overgrown stone wall at his back. He undid the ropes tying Daniel onto the litter and dragged him onto a marginally more comfortable pallet of blankets. The evening chores done, he took off his boots and stretched out his feet to the fire. With the rare luxury of firelight to substitute for the flashlight they didn't have, he started fiddling with the radio, not for the first time, trying to get it to work.

"Let me try," Daniel said suddenly. Jack hadn't realized he was awake. Two lucid spells in the last two hours ... maybe their luck was turning.

He passed the radio over. Daniel sat up halfway, propped on his elbow, and fiddled with the wires, squinting in the firelight. He paused sometimes to rub his forehead, as if his head hurt. 

"Water?" Jack said.

Without speaking, Daniel took the canteen with a shaking hand. Jack watched him for a minute to be sure he wasn't going to spill it, then turned to opening a can of peaches, one of the last cans of anything they had. He was so far beyond hungry at this point that the food seemed almost unappealing, but he knew his body could use the shot of sugar. Taking a breath, he held it out Daniel's way instead.

Daniel shook his head. He'd set the canteen aside and had his scruffy dark head bowed over the guts of the radio again.

"Come on, damn it."

"You need it more than I do," Daniel said without looking up. "You're doing all the work."

He might've heard more than Jack had meant him to earlier, of the steady stream of complaints and cursing at Daniel to get up and pull his weight that Jack had been using to motivate himself. He felt slightly guilty, and then angry at himself for feeling guilty; he was hauling the asshole all over creation, the least Daniel could do was put up with a little griping at his expense. "Eat the damn peaches, Sousa."

The radio slipped out of Daniel's shaky hands into the dirt. " _Damn_ it," Daniel snarled, and then slumped back on the pallet as if the outburst had used the last of his strength.

"You got something against peaches?"

"I've got something against being _deadweight,"_ Daniel growled without raising his head.

The anger was vastly preferable to his lethargy of the last couple of days; the hours of slow travel had slipped away with Daniel lost in pale, feverish, monosyllabic silence. It was possible, Jack thought, that the tough little bastard was actually shaking it off somewhat.

"So walk for awhile tomorrow." Jack stabbed one of the peaches with his knife and ate it.

"Yeah. I will."

He didn't say anything else. Jack leaned his shoulders against the stone wall and ate half the peaches in the can, drank half the juice, before leaning over -- _ouch,_ everything had stiffened up -- to shove the can into Daniel's lax hand. Daniel, who had been lying there with his arm thrown over his eyes, reluctantly propped himself up on his elbow and started to eat.

Better than nothing. To distract himself from the peaches bouncing around in his empty stomach, Jack said, "How do you think the rescue's going?"

Daniel shrugged.

"Make you a wager," Jack said, "Marge has pulled together what's left of the Howling Commandoes, browbeat the State Department, and is even now storming the Iron Curtain in a cargo plane she stole from Stark."

This got a small laugh out of Daniel. "Wouldn't surprise me." He paused, opened his mouth as if to say something else, then closed it.

"What?" Jack said.

"Nothing, just ..." Daniel blew out a breath and choked on a wet cough. Then he said, "She's pregnant."

Jack dropped the radio parts he'd picked up, cursed and scrambled to retrieve them before they were lost in the damp leaves. "Say what, now?"

"Pregnant, she's pregnant. We haven't told anybody yet. Weren't going to, until ... I dunno, a lot farther along. _You_ know what people are going to be like about it, she'll have to take a leave of absence, but it depends on how long she can hide it ..."

Jack didn't say anything. He was thinking, as Daniel must have been for the last week, of Peggy trying to muscle her way behind the Iron Curtain to look for them -- Peggy God only knew where right now, maybe even in a firefight ...

Pregnant. God. He'd long since stopped worrying about her, except in the way he'd worry about a comrade in arms. On some deep level, he didn't think he'd had doubts since Belarus that Peggy Carter could take care of herself. But ... this changed everything. _Pregnant ..._

Then he laughed to himself. Yeah. Like she was gonna let it slow her down. Leave of absence, hell. She'd bundle herself in parkas if she had to, to make sure no one around the office noticed. 

"You're _laughing,"_ Daniel said in disbelief. "What the hell's funny?"

All Jack could do was shake his head, unable to explain -- not sure if he _wanted_ to try to explain, to Peggy's husband -- the mental image he now had, of an eight-months-pregnant, about-to-pop Peggy marching into battle with assault rifle firmly clasped in hand. And that made him collapse in full-on laughter.

"You'd have to hit me if I told you," he finally gasped out.

Daniel stared at him and then collapsed too, wheezing and coughing and cursing at Jack when he could draw a breath. There was nothing rational about it, maybe nothing sane. But sometimes, you just had to laugh.

They wound down at last, Jack wiping tears from his eyes, Daniel stifling a coughing fit.

"I hate you," Daniel said, between coughs.

"I know, you've said. Oh, hey." Jack passed him an aspirin from their tiny supply. There were only two left. "Take this while you've got something in your stomach. Gonna need your sleep if you plan to walk tomorrow."

"For what good it does," Daniel sighed, but he took it with a swig from the canteen.

The fire had died down to low coals. It was getting cold. Jack, his teeth starting to chatter, reached for the one blanket that wasn't currently engaged in being a Sousa-nest.

Peggy. Pregnant. He turned that over in his mind. He wanted to ask why Daniel had told him, but he was afraid he didn't want to hear the answer. The more he thought about it, the more it had the feel of some kind of oblique last request.

 _Take care of her for me._ Except couched in the way they, he and Daniel, always talked around each other; it was how they worked. Peggy had just said it flat out to him. Daniel couldn't. But ... the thought was there.

On some stupid impulse, some kind of crazy urge to respond to Daniel's openness with his own offering of intimacy, it made him want to talk about Okinawa.

Instead, as he lay wrapped in the blanket beside the dwindling fire, he said, "I hope you're planning on naming it after me."

He figured Daniel was asleep or passed out, but there was finally a faint, thready voice from the bundle of blankets on the opposite side of the fire. "Could be a girl."

"Jacqueline. Good name. Strong name."

"I'm just gonna let you make that suggestion to Peggy."

"Oh, admitting who really wears the pants in the family?"

Daniel refused to rise to the bait. Or perhaps had actually fallen asleep.

"Anyway," Jack added smugly, "I am _absolutely_ getting that baby named after me. Just you watch."

After a long silence, Daniel mumbled, "You and what army?"

"Me, bringing you back to her, _alive."_

There was a silence on the other side of the fire that might indicate either a tacit agreement that he _had_ in fact won the argument, or Daniel finally passing out. Jack curled into the scratchy, smoke-smelling blanket he'd managed to retrieve from an outbuilding on the HYDRA base, thinking about directions and compasses and how many more days to the border, and whether they could get the radio working and what it might mean if they couldn't --

He almost didn't hear Daniel speak again, a single, very quiet word. "Thanks, Jack."

And he didn't really know what to say to that. So he didn't say anything.

 

***

 

It was two days later when the Stark plane picked them up from a field ... four hours after that when they found themselves in a hospital on the _correct_ side of the border, Daniel whisked off behind a white curtain and Jack left feeling incredibly grimy and itchy and out of place, not entirely sure what to do with himself. After a week and a half of 24/7 dedicated Sousa-time, he _ought_ to want to get as far away from Daniel as possible, but in actual reality it felt downright weird to turn him over to other people to take care of.

_They're medical experts, idiot. What can YOU do about a septic gunshot wound?_

He just hoped they could get Daniel back to normal. Or something approaching it. He'd have to hold the gag gifts (dolls with both legs chopped off at the knees, that kind of thing) 'til he was sure that Daniel was going to keep that other leg and get the full use of it back.

He was still standing there, staring at the curtain and trying to find the energy to figure out where to go next, when Peggy came in.

She hadn't changed a bit -- _of course she hasn't,_ he thought; he'd only seen her a couple of weeks ago. Had it really been so little time? It seemed so much longer. She didn't _look_ pregnant, he couldn't help thinking, and tried not to stare too obviously at her midsection.

She just stood and stared at him for a moment, hair in perfect curls, makeup immaculate ... and then crossed the room and hugged him, filthy as he was.

He didn't know how to react. She had never done that before; the closest they'd ever come was when Jack, half-drunk and full of unaccustomed warmth toward all and sundry, had tugged both her and Daniel into casual half-hugs at their wedding. But this was something different, a sort of shuddering desperation that he wasn't sure if he could deal with in his present state of mind. She was _strong_ , he always forgot how strong she was, and he had a feeling that if he tried to get away, he might just end up being put in a headlock.

"I told you I'd bring him back," was all he could think of to say.

"I know." Her voice was as ragged as his must be, her cheek turned against his chest and hair falling to hide her face. "But I forgot to tell you to bring yourself back as well."

 

***

 

Elizabeth Jacqueline Carter-Sousa was born six months later.

The whole family called her Little Jackie.

Peggy always swore Jackie was named after some great-uncle named Jack who'd been stationed in India back before the turn of the century, but no one seemed to believe her.


End file.
